November At MUBI Will Be 'Satirical And Steamy'

Another month is only days away, what will that month offer us at MUBI? It looks like November will be ‘satirical and steamy’ at boutique streaming service.

Spooky Season is well underway with a new documentary from visual essayist Elizabeth Sankey WITCHES (2024), tracing connections between postpartum mental health and the historical portrayal of witches, Naqqash Khalid’s satirical debut IN CAMERA (2023), Winner for Best Short Film at this year’s Berlinale, Francisco Lezama’s fourth comedy short AN ODD TURN (2024). Additionally, there’s the addition of the second restoration project by MUBI – Tunç Başaran’s DON’T LET THEM SHOOT THE KITE (1989).

In of collections, MUBI are spoiling viewers for choice. There’s the Midnight Movies collection, a series that captures the essence of the steamy films that play past your bedtime, the Short Films Big Names collection, as well as the Diamonds in the Rough collection, which captures portraits of Americans living on the outskirts of society. Finally, two iconic films from Martin Scorsese MEAN STREETS (1973) and CASINO (1995).

LATEST & GREATEST: WITCHES

From visual essayist Elizabeth Sankey comes her latest documentary Witches (2024) tracing the connections between postpartum mental health and the historical portrayal of witches in Western society and popular culture.

Sankey intertwines her own personal experiences of postpartum mental health, hypnotic montages of archival cinematic footage and vulnerable and enlightening testimonials from medical professionals and fellow mothers while creating a coven for the new age. Both an intimate personal diary and an eye-opening examination of women’s health and motherhood, Witches is an honest and empowering reclamation of old narratives that have long demonised women.

Witches (Sankey, 2024) – 22nd November

YOU UP?: MIDNIGHT MOVIES

Navigate the sultry and and erotically charged world of the midnight movie by entering the worlds of our Midnight Movies collection, a series that captures the essence of the steamy and sexually explicit films that play on your TV when you have stayed up past your bedtime. These films of vice and excess investigate the allure of the salacious and our human curiosity of it, while also providing an empathetic look at the eccentric people who live in these seedy worlds.

Crash (Cronenberg, 1996) – 8th November
Young Adam (Mackenzie, 2003) –8th November
Enter the Void (Noé, 2009) –8th November
Piercing (Pesce, 2018) –8th November
Variety (Gordon, 1983) – Now Streaming
The Dreamers (Bertolucci, 2003) – Now Streaming
Stranger by the Lake (Guiraudie, 2013) – Now Streaming
Love (Noé, 2015) – Now Streaming
Benedetta (Verhoeven, 2021) – Now Streaming
Pleasure (Thyberg, 2021) – Now Streaming
ages (Sachs, 2023) – Now Streaming
Rotting in the Sun (Silva, 2023) – Now Streaming

LATEST & GREATEST: IN CAMERA

Naqqash Khalid’s In Camera (2023) follows Aden (Nabhaan Rizwan) as he pursues his dream of becoming a successful actor, but as he goes to audition after audition, the rejections and microaggressions he faces as a man of South Asian heritage begin to take their toll. Upon meeting the charismatic Conrad (Amir El-Masry) however, Aden is inspired by his confidence to find a new part to play.

Set in his native Manchester, Khalid’s satirical debut film uses its mystifying tone to amplify the nightmarish world of prejudice that exists within the film industry while also offering a gleam of hope by celebrating how performance can liberate and empower.

In Camera (Khalid, 2023) – 15th November

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: AN ODD TURN

Winner for Best Short Film at this year’s Berlinale, Francisco Lezama’s fourth comedy short An Odd Turn (2024) is a dry, absurdist vision of everyday life that deftly scrutinises modern Argentinian society, everything from the value of currencies to sexuality, relationships and employment.

In Buenos Aires, a museum security guard foresees a sharp rise in the dollar’s value with her pendulum. When she suddenly loses her job, she receives an unexpected severance payment and falls in love with the employee of a currency exchange office.

An Odd Turn (Lezama, 2024) – 11th November

REDISCOVERED: DON’T LET THEM SHOOT THE KITE

Tunç Başaran’s Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite (1989) comes to the platform newly restored in stunning 4K – the second restoration project by MUBI. Now a classic of Turkish cinema, the beautifully observed and tender story captures the struggles of childhood against the backdrop of a women-only prison where fleeting moments of joy, festivity, competition and hate go hand in hand.

When a woman is sent to prison for drug smuggling, her young son Bariş is sent with her. There Bariş searches for companionship and guidance – and finds both in İnci, a political prisoner with whom he forms a deep and special bond.

Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite (Başaran, 1989) – 23rd November

SHORT FILMS BIG NAMES

From iconic early works and to new experiments, Short Films Big Names proves size doesn’t matter. This collection provides a crucial window into the formation and evolution of signature filmmaking styles of some of the best directors working today. In November, the collection welcomes two exciting shorts: Diary of an African Nun (1977) by pioneering director Julie Dash. Adapted from Alice Walker’s short story of the same name, this was Dash’s first move towards narrative filmmaking and features a poetic and political style that informs her later works like Daughters of the Dust.

Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection (2023) by the master of body horror, David Cronenberg. 18th century dissected anatomical figures drift in episodes of rapture in this experimental piece exploring the representation of the female body in scientific contexts through an artistic lens.

Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection (Cronenberg, 2023) – 11th November
Yuki’s Sun (Miyazaki, 1972) – Now Streaming
An Exercise in Discipline – Peel (Campion, 1982) – Now Streaming
Lady (Sachs, 1993) – Now Streaming
Incoherence (Bong, 1994) – Now Streaming
Lick the Star (Coppola, 1998) – Now Streaming
Wasp (Arnold, 2003) – Now Streaming
Tavern Man (Kaurismäki, 2012) – Now Streaming
The Fall (Glazer, 2019) – Now Streaming

DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH: TWO BY SEAN BAKER

To celebrate the theatrical release of the Palme d’Or winning Anora (2024) comes our Diamonds in the Rough collection. Sean Baker’s intimate portraits of Americans living on the outskirts of society intimately detail the dynamic lives of the people who live within these margins. Famously shot entirely on an iPhone, his vivacious Tangerine (2015) features a hurricane of a performance from Mya Taylor (Alexandra) as a sex worker blitzing across Los Angeles hell-bent on revenge, while The Florida Project (2017) sees the world through the lens of the wiley six-year old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and her two best friends who live in Florida amongst the shadow of the “most magical place on earth”. As Moonee and her friends create their own magic adventures, her struggling mother (Bria Vinaite) and the lovable manager of the motel she lives in (Willem Dafoe) work to protect them against the brutal reality of the world that they live in.

The Florida Project (Baker, 2017) – 1st November
Tangerine (Baker, 2015) – Now Streaming

GOTTA GET BACK IN THE GAME: TWO BY MARTIN SCORSESE

With his first crime film, Mean Streets (1973), Scorsese established himself as a director of the genre that not only tapped into the exciting narrative spectacle of the criminal underworld, but also revealed him to be a probing investigator of the human condition. The film begins Scorsese’s life-long collaboration with Robert De Niro who plays Charlie, a young man seeking to make a big name for himself in New York’s Little Italy Mafia.

By the time Casino (1995) hits the scene, Scorsese is now a giant of the crime genre. In the film, Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein (Robert De Niro) heads one of the biggest casinos of Las Vegas in the ‘70s with glowing success until the convoluted web that has built the empire begins to unravel at the seams as the corrupt layers that build it prove to be unsustainable.

Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973) – 17th November
Casino (Scorsese, 1995) – 17th November